A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
C1b Reader I was borne and cry’d
Notes. Like “The Parliament Fart” (“Downe came grave auntient Sir John Crooke”), this poem is occasionally ascribed to John Hoskyns, although generally it is without attribution. Many sources transcribe it immediately after “The Parliament Fart”, but the connection is by no means universal, and numerous sources transcribe one without the other. In some sources, only the first two lines are given. After 1649, the Roman allusions to the assassination of Julius Caesar, Romulus, and Flora would have lent the fart a certain republican cast.
“The Farts Epitaph”
Reader I was borne and cry’d
Crackt soe, smelt so & so dy’d
Like Julius Cesar was my Death
For he in Senate lost his breath1
And not unlike Intoom’d doth lye
5The Noble Romulus2 & I
And alsoe like to Flora fayer3
I make the Common-wealth mine Heyer
Source. Bodleian MS Tanner 306, fol. 256v
Other known sources. Musarum Deliciae 71; Bodleian MS CCC. 328, fol. 94v; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 71, p. 4; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 160, fol. 158v; Bodleian MS Sancroft 53, p. 56; BL Add. MS 15227, fol. 79v; BL Add. MS 30982, fol. 157v; BL MS Egerton 2421, fol. 2v; BL MS Harley 6918, fol. 34v; BL MS Harley 6931, fol. 35v; BL MS Lans. 674, fol. 18v; BL MS Sloane 1792, fol. 95r; BL MS Stowe 962, fol. 219r; St. John’s MS S.32, fol. 7r; Beinecke MS Osborn b.197, p. 58; Folger MS V.a.97, p. 128; Folger MS V.a.162, fol. 86r; Folger MS V.a.170, p. 68; Huntington MS HM 116, p. 11; Rosenbach MS 239/27, p. 27; Rosenbach MS 1083/15, p. 113
C1b
1 he in Senate...breath: Julius Caesar was famously assassinated by the republican Brutus in the Senate. <back>
2 Noble Romulus: Romulus, the mythic founder of the Roman Republic, disappeared in a violent storm and therefore lacked a tomb. It was believed he was taken to heaven by his father, Mars. <back>
3 Flora fayer...Heyer: the Romans believed Flora was once a wealthy courtesan in the early years of the Roman republic, and left her fortune to the people, making the Republic her heir on the condition they celebrate her birthday with feasts. <back>
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